Biofuels and Bioenergy

We have developed a proprietary process for transforming celluloses into previously unknown nanoporous forms. The process is carried out at ambient temperature and pressure by a method that uses only water, ethanol, sodium hydroxide and carbon dioxide. Thus, both capital and operating costs are far less than those of traditional high-temperature and highpressure biomass pretreatment processes. The products are easily converted to monosaccharides that can be used as feedstocks for biosynthetic processes for fermentation to fuels or for other organic synthetic processes. The process can also convert low-value agricultural residues into nutritious feeds for ruminant livestock. The effectiveness of the transformation is reflected by reduction of the enzyme dosages necessary for hydrolysis to monosaccharides by an order of magnitude. When applied to agricultural residues the process increases their digestibility by ruminants from 30-90%. We will describe the process and present results that reflect its effectiveness.